Eleanor has been working with the ‘Green Growers’ group, volunteers who help Southwark groups that need help with their community gardens. The group has planted vegetables on the East Dulwich Estate and revived a herb garden on the Rockingham Estate near Elephant and Castle.

In Camberwell, they weeded Benhill Road Nature Garden, trimmed back shrubs ready for the winter, picked up litter and cleared the pond of weed.

Eleanor calls for cleaner buses and a zero emission delivery scheme

Local people have been telling us they are worried about air pollution and want fewer cars and trucks passing through their streets. Southwark Green Party measured nitrogen dioxide pollution. It was more than twice the legal limit in Camberwell, and way above the legal limit outside many local schools.

Eleanor Margolies says: "This is an urgent health issue. Over 500 people signed our petition to ask the Mayor of London to clean up dirty diesel buses. And Southwark Council needs to take action too. The council should:

• Keep long-distance traffic to main roads, not residential streets
• Support zero emission delivery schemes
• Tell drivers how they can help by turning engines off when they stop for a minute or more."

The terrible loss of life in the Grenfell Tower disaster was something many people thought could never happen in Britain. But Grenfell was not an isolated tragedy. In 2009, six people died in a fire at Lakanal House in Camberwell, which highlighted issues that could have prevented Grenfell.

John Tyson, the Green Party’s parliamentary candidate for Bermondsey and Old Southwark, has drawn up a petition calling for the immediate implementation of the 2013 report on the Lakanal fire. The petition now has more than 80,000 signatures – you can sign it here.

Southwark Council is consulting on the status of Camberwell Grove. The road goes over the railway via a bridge, just south of the junction with McNeil Road. This bridge has been closed to all motor traffic since October 2016, due to structural failure.

The council website says: 'Repairs to the bridge will soon be completed by Network Rail, which will allow it to be reopened for small motor vehicles (under 3 tonne) with traffic lights allowing alternate one-way flows to cater for both north and south-bound traffic'. The council wants to hear your views before taking a final decision on reopening the bridge. The consultation page is here (closing Monday 30 October).

We encourage Southwark residents to respond. Read on for our comments.

Last week, Green London Assembly member Caroline Russell delivered on our behalf our petition to the Mayor, asking for buses through Camberwell Green to be replaced with electric, hydrogen or hybrid buses. The petition got 525 signatures in total (online and on paper). Thanks to everyone who signed, tweeted and helped collect signatures - 

The South London Press also published the results of our nitrogen dioxide monitoring. Out of 20 sites, only two were within the legal limit - and one of these, Camberwell Grove, has no through traffic at the moment.

Overview: Some of the elements are genuinely useful. We support the new pedestrian crossing between Camberwell Passage and the Green, and the repositioning of the St Giles bus stop, to improve sight-lines.

But the plans offer far too little to improve safety. We cannot see that it is worthwhile doing this 'interim' work at great cost when it offers so little. We urge TfL to withdraw the plans and replace them with plans that consider Camberwell as a town centre with shops and community services, and consider how people actually need to move around it on foot or on bike. This is an essential step in tackling the current dangers of the junction as well as the wider public health emergency of air pollution.

If you’re wondering where Camberwell Station is, take a look next time you’re passing Camberwell Station Road! This stop on the Thameslink line has been out of use for many years.

We support the campaign to reopen the station to relieve crowded Walworth Road buses and improve access to King’s College Hospital. Trains on this line come from Brighton, Sevenoaks and Sutton, going through Elephant & Castle, Blackfriars and King’s Cross St Pancras – right up to St Albans and Bedford.

www.southwarkcan.org/camberwellstation

Local Greens listening to residents' concerns about transport

‘Are you happy with the way you get around? Is there anything you’d like to change?’ Visitors to the ‘Travel Clinic’ at the Brunswick Park TRA fete in August got a free personalised calculation of their travel costs and tips about how to save money.

Eleanor said, ‘It was really interesting hearing people’s ideas at the fete. There are some great free or very cheap offers from community organisations and the council. Get in touch if you’d like one of our info packs!’

We all know the strain of travelling through noisy, polluted streets and the worry it causes when journeys are delayed. But shifting away from the most polluting forms of transport takes political action.

That’s why we are asking the Mayor, Sadiq Khan, to put cleaner buses on the 17 routes that run through Camberwell: www.change.org/p/sadiq-khan-cleanair-for-camberwell.

Neither the Mayor nor Southwark Council goes nearly far enough in their plans to tackle traffic fumes. We need politicians who are prepared to face up to the reality of the air pollution crisis that is killing 9,500 Londoners a year and stunting the lungs of children. This public health crisis needs action now. We can’t wait till 2040!

We are demanding cleaner buses after our tests found pollution levels in Southwark more than double legal limit. We have  launched a petition demanding London Mayor Sadiq Khan take action this year to clean up every bus driving through Camberwell Green.

Pollution monitors placed around Southwark by local members recorded levels of nitrogen dioxide at more than twice the legal EU limit outside McDonalds on Denmark Hill. Just two of the 20 locations monitored for the full month of February fell within the legal limit.